The Patch of Blue
by The Random Artist
Summary: It's strange how a stick can make a world of difference. Graire 4ever!


Disclaimer: So yeah, I don't own Harvest Moon, Natsume does (that sounds so weird to someone who just came from the Gakuen Alice fandom...)

I have gone to the Graire-side…XD

_I Left My Heart in Mineral Town, by Harvest Loon; Deja Vu, by someoneudontknow5; Puppy Love: A Graire Story, by prettyxinxpoison; and My Favorite Color, by Jean Cooper_

Curse your brilliance! Ehem, please read my story and I hope you enjoy it enough to review! First Harvest Moon fic ever, and most likely going to be a three-shot. :"D

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**The Patch of Blue **  
**by the Random Artist**  
**from Random Artist Publishing House  
Dedicated to the awesome writers mentioned above**

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** An **aggravated yell was heard from behind the heavy wooden door of the Blacksmith's, and as anyone who had lived in Mineral Town for at least a season would know that Gray the Blacksmith's apprentice was having another ramble with the Blacksmith Sibara.

True enough, a tall red-headed figure angrily emerged from the forge, ignoring the screams of "come back here, you lazy idiot!" from his grandfather. The young man had had enough of his grandfather criticizing him all the time. Even when he did his best, all the old nag could do was find the faults in everything he made.

Finally figuring out he didn't know where he was going, Gray stopped his furious march only to realize he was in front of the old abandoned farm. Wait - make that ex-abandoned.

Ever since a new girl came into the town just four days ago, being the poor sap that fell for the "beautiful farm" ad Mayor Thomas put up, she had made a life goal of some sort of fixing the broken-beyond-belief farm and turning it into the best one ever.

When Gray had first overheard this from the desperate (-ly gossiping) housewives in Rose Square, he couldn't believe that someone could actually be stupid enough to even try to revive that graveyard of hopes and dreams. But he never met Claire Isabelle R. Wright.

And when he did, he didn't exactly make a good first impression.

_It was a perfect spring day; the sky was a cloudless blue, the birds were singing, and if you listened hard enough you could hear the Harvest Sprites working their little pixie magic in awakening what sleeping creature was left._

_All in all, a beautiful day to just relax and slack off. But of course Siberia would have none of that during a work day._

_Here they were again, grandfather versus grandson, both with equally short tempers and equally dangerous tools in their hands._

_"Could you stop yelling at me for at least three seconds once in a while?" Gray yelled, his bright sky-blue eyes burning with anger at the strong ancient man before him. His grip on the hammer he was holding tightened. _

_"Maybe I would if you'd do something right for once!" Sibara retorted angrily, his own blue eyes filled with rage at the incompetence of his grandson._

_"Auugh! I'm sick of all this! I'm tired of doing this shi-" but the younger man was cut off by a soft knock from the door. A golden head poked through it, the girl's big dark blue eyes showing a hint of embarrassment. Both balding and red head turned towards her._

_"Um, did I come at a bad time...?" she asked hesitantly, her hand still on the doorknob. Siberia quickly recovered from his fighting stance while Gray was left frozen in his place, dumbfounded by the unexpected visitor._

_"Hello, and who might you be? You're a new face around here." commented Siberia gruffly._

_The girl blushed a bit. "Sorry, my name is Claire. I'm the new owner of the old farm not far from here. I just came by to introduce myself to everyone in town. It's nice to meet you Mister…?" Her blue eyes glanced questioningly at the old man._

_"Sibara, the Blacksmith," he introduced himself. "And this is Gray," he nodded to the still-figure. "My no good grandson."_

_Gray quickly recovered from his frozen state and glared at his grandfather. "I'm out," he growled, then ran out of the Blacksmith's, not noticing that he pushed Claire on the way out._

_"Gray!" his grandfather cried angrily. "Gray, come back here!" The old man sighed and turned to the fallen blond girl, helping her up. "My apologies, Claire. I don't know what I'm going to do with that boy."_

_..._

Gray snapped out from his recollection. He sighed to himself. _'I really hurt that girl. I might as well apologize as long as I'm already here.' _

He pushed the wooden gate, noticing the newly painted "Glad Farms" sign. He was a bit shocked at the sight before him.

The field has been cleared of the millions of rocks, weeds and sticks that had once littered it, though there were still a few huge boulders and stumps. Instead, there in its place was a delicate blond girl in dark blue overalls planting some turnip seeds in one corner, whistling a happy tune unfamiliar to Gray. He coughed to get her attention.

Claire raised her head from her planting towards the sound and saw a tall guy with a bit of reddish blond hair peeking from beneath his UMA cap.

_'Well what to you know;' _she thought wryly._ 'It's that rude Gray guy from yesterday.' _Now she would never say something so mean out loud, but Claire had a bit of another personality, whom we shall call Evil Claire, who is an evil genius trapped in a naive blonde girl's body.

"Uum... sorry to intrude but..." Gray started nervously, and Claire noticed this. She, being the seventy-five percent nice girl that she is, decided to listen to this rude guy even against Evil Claire's wishes.

"It's all right, I don't bite," she remarked in amusement at the blushing face the blacksmith's apprentice tried to cover with the bill of his hat. He mumbled something incoherent. Claire raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me, but did you say something?" she asked as politely as she could.

"I'm sorry about being so mean to you yesterday," Gray mumbled a bit louder, looking up from the ground that he so desperately wanted to open up and suck him in and never let him out.

Claire was shocked, and even Evil Claire couldn't say anything bad about Gray anymore. She totally did not expect rude Gray-guy to apologize.

When he looked up, she saw that he had the most _amazing_ sky blue eyes. And don't forget the fudging **hawt **face. Snapping from her thoughts, she tried to function normally as if she did not just realize the guy in front of her was practically Adonis' younger, better-looking red-headed twin brother.

"It's alright. People can lose their tempers once in a while," she smiled gently. He looked at her with disbelief in his eyes. There was no way that someone could actually think that. So he, being an extremely shy gruff guy, grunted in response.

She translated it to "thank you for understanding."

And Claire, being unusually observant that day, noticed that though she barely knew Gray, she somehow knew that the man was unusually unhappy. Wow, she used a lot of un's.

"Why do you seem so sad?" she blurted out before she had a chance to think of what she just said. And she blushed when she did. "I'm sorry, it's not in my place..."

"It's that obvious?" he asked, cutting her off. "It's just because my grandfather's always on me all the time and he never gives me a break! I work all day and try my hardest, I really do, but all I get from my hard work is harsh criticism. I'm so tired of it; it's like the old fart lives off my misery or something!"

Though a bit surprised at his sudden outburst, Claire listened patiently to him since she had a feeling he wasn't the type to talk much, and he seemed really stressed.

Gray, on the other hand, was shocked that she took his rambling patiently, and even more so with himself for practically telling his life story to a girl he just met and yet already felt comfortable with.

Once he finally poured out everything, he just looked at her, waiting for her to question what the heck was going on with him and run away screaming "WEIRDO!"

He wouldn't blame her; after all, what would you do when some random guy who had been so rude to you before suddenly blabbers on and on about something you've got nothing to do with?

Instead, she eyed him carefully and said "Gray; I think I understand you. But-" she paused. "IT"S CALLED _TRAINING_!" she nearly yelled, emphasizing 'training.' "You shouldn't feel so down when someone scolds you because it only means they care enough to use their breath on you."

She smirked. "And from what I hear, he seems to care for you a lot since you say he yells at you all the time."

Gray was amazed. Then he looked down, suddenly ashamed of himself. Claire was right; he had to suck it up and try harder. All this time when Sibara criticized him, he thought it was only because the old man wanted to make his life a living hell. But now he was starting to that it was only so he could improve.

He smiled at the blonde. "Thanks a lot, Claire. You really helped me there. Now I'm going to work harder." Claire tried her best not to melt at his _gorgeous _smile.

_'Stop, unbelievably hopeless romantic-type thoughts!'_ she scolded herself. _'You are twenty-one and a half years-old, not a teenager with hormone-ridden teenager.' _

Claire almost groaned out loud. _'Great. Now I'm talking to myself. I really should see a therapist.'_

"Don't mention it," she replied cheerfully, returning his smile (and hoping that he couldn't somehow read minds). "Helping someone with their troublesome grandfather problems _was _on my list of things to do today."

She laughed, and he could not help laughed along with her. My god, just call her hit-by-Cupid's-arrow. Even his laughter was hot.

"Well I really have to go now. I'll give you a tour of the town tomorrow, if you'd like," he grinned.

'_You're just full of surprises, aren't you, Gray?'_ she thought, inwardly smiling.

She nodded. "Thanks! That would be great."

He waved good bye and turned around when an unusually strong gust of wind blew his hat off his head and landed a few feet from Claire.

She picked it up and said "got it!" She walked over to Gray when she tripped over a stray twig shrieked as she fell towards Gray.

They soon found themselves in an...intimate position, with Claire on top of Gray and their faces a few inches apart. They could feel each other's breath, and they were too shocked to move.

'_Damned stick,' _she cursed.

**A/N: **Yey! Done with the chapter! If you're wondering why Gray would listen to gossip, it's because it's such a small town and big news is quite rare. So of course even the most anti-social people would get interested in the news of a new farmer. Oh, and I really did my best with this story, I even proof-read this twice. But I'm so sorry for the lame ending. Reviews and critism would be very happily accepted since it would help me a lot. Thank you!

P.S. Don't you just love Gray's hat? It's simply oh-so-useful to create fluff. ;D

Re-edited on 9/17/2010


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